Woodworker and artist

Artists in ancient Egypt did not have much creative freedom. There were rules about how people and objects could be shown. Art was more about maintaining maat (balance and truth) than about showing the world as it actually was.

Woodworker - Woodworkers in ancient Egypt made a wide range of objects such as roofing joists, bed frames, doors, coffins, amulets (protective charms) and life-size statues. They worked with stone and bronze chisels, saws, adzes and axes, wooden mallets and drills turned by string. Some were very skilled craftsmen who made beautiful furniture for the royal family, others made rough furniture for ordinary people, such as headrests and boxes.

Artist - The word artist covers a wide range of craftsmen in ancient Egypt. An artist might be someone who painted the wall decoration in tombs and temples. They might have painted the wooden objects made by woodworkers, such as a box for offerings or a coffin, or added the illustrations on scrolls of papyrus (paper made from reeds). Like most craftsmen in ancient Egypt, artists had to make everything they needed. They made paint by grinding coloured minerals into powder on a stone palette and mixed it in a paint tray. They made pens and brushes from reeds. Artists may have used ostraca (pieces of broken stone or pottery) to practice on.

Stone worker

The ancient Egyptians used stone for a wide range of purposes, from building huge temples to making tiny cosmetics pots. Masons and sculptors worked with a variety of stones, from soft limestone for buildings to hard basalt for statues. Other stone workers specialised in working alabaster (calcite or calcium carbonate) and soft stones.

Stonemason - Stonemasons built the temples of ancient Egypt, and carved the wall decoration. They supervised work in the rock quarries. They built tombs for rich men and women. Sculptors carved the statues of the gods, the pharaohs (kings) and important people to be placed in the temples or tombs. The masons worked with stone and bronze chisels and saws, bronze drills, wooden mallets, and stone hammers and polishers. Some of the tools of their trade, such as the set square and plumb line, became amulets (protective charms) representing maat (balance and truth).

Alabaster worker - Some stone workers specialised in working soft stones such as Egyptian alabaster and slate. They made small containers used for cosmetics. Almost everyone used kohl (eye makeup), so there was a big demand for these pots. They also made larger bowls and pots for food and perhaps for offerings. Their tools included copper drills and hard stone borers to shape the inside of the containers, and stone polishers to smooth the outside.

Craft workers in ancient Egypt varied in their levels of skill and what they could produce. Metal workers ranged from those making basic tools to those creating delicate jewellery. Weavers produced different types of cloth with the finest linen made by the most skilled.

Metalworker and jeweller - Metalworkers and jewellers used gold and silver for jewellery, furniture inlays and statues. Titles such as ‘Chief Goldsmith’ appear on stelae (inscribed slabs of stone or wood). Metalworkers made items such as tools, mirrors and knives out of copper and bronze. They also made small statues of the gods out of bronze. Goldsmiths and silversmiths worked with other craftsmen. They mixed gold and silver beads and pendants with semi-precious stones such as amethyst, carnelian or lapis lazuli.

Weaver - Most textiles were made from linen, using the long fibres from the stem of the flax plant. Workers spun the fibres into thread with spindles and wove the thread on a loom. One type of loom had stone weights to hold the warp (vertical) threads. A weaver’s mark in the edge of the cloth was the trademark of a workshop or a weaver. They used knives to cut the cloth and needles to sew it. The more important the person, the more elaborate their clothes. The Egyptians used linen cloth to make clothes and household items such as sheets and towels, and they wrapped their dead in linen bandages.

The ancient Egyptians were making pots at least 5,000 years ago. Although pottery was important for cooking and storage pots, the potters themselves were low down in the social order. Faience (a type of glazed ceramic) was made to imitate valuable semi-precious stones such as turquoise. It was widely used for jewellery and amulets (protective charms) because ordinary people could afford it.

Potter - Clay was easy to obtain, simple to work and cheap. They used it to make pots and dishes for storing, cooking and eating food and containers for make-up and medicines. Clay was also used to make toys, and offerings to the gods and the dead. Some of the pots were decorated with patterns, images of ships or stylised lotus flowers. The potters made plain pots for use in the kitchen.

Faience maker - The faience workers made faience out of powdered stone or sand mixed into a paste with water, lime and copper salts. The copper gave the items their blue or green colour. They made a wide range of objects, from wall tiles and bowls to jewellery and kohl (eye makeup) pots. These workers modelled most objects by hand until about 3,500 years ago, when they increased the use of moulds. This allowed them to mass-produce objects such as amulets and shabtis (mummy-shaped figures).

Most people in ancient Egypt would not have lived beyond 40 years old. Many children died within the first years of life. Many women died young during pregnancy and childbirth.

A staff was a sign of status and a walking aid for the elderly. The ideal was to live to one hundred and ten, in ‘revered old age’. Few people achieved this. Richer people were more likely to live longer because they had better food and an easier working life. Just like today, the poor had a shorter life span due to the hardship of their working life and a limited diet.